1.
Prime meridian
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A prime meridian is a meridian in a geographical coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a meridian and its antimeridian form a great circle. This great circle divides the sphere, e. g. the Earth, if one uses directions of East and West from a defined prime meridian, then they can be called Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere. The most widely used modern meridian is the IERS Reference Meridian and it is derived but deviates slightly from the Greenwich Meridian, which was selected as an international standard in 1884. The notion of longitude was developed by the Greek Eratosthenes in Alexandria, and Hipparchus in Rhodes, but it was Ptolemy who first used a consistent meridian for a world map in his Geographia. The main point is to be comfortably west of the tip of Africa as negative numbers were not yet in use. His prime meridian corresponds to 18°40 west of Winchester today, at that time the chief method of determining longitude was by using the reported times of lunar eclipses in different countries. Ptolemys Geographia was first printed with maps at Bologna in 1477, but there was still a hope that a natural basis for a prime meridian existed. The Tordesillas line was settled at 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. This is shown in Diogo Ribeiros 1529 map, in 1541, Mercator produced his famous 41 cm terrestrial globe and drew his prime meridian precisely through Fuertaventura in the Canaries. His later maps used the Azores, following the magnetic hypothesis, but by the time that Ortelius produced the first modern atlas in 1570, other islands such as Cape Verde were coming into use. In his atlas longitudes were counted from 0° to 360°, not 180°W to 180°E as is usual today and this practice was followed by navigators well into the 18th century. In 1634, Cardinal Richelieu used the westernmost island of the Canaries, Ferro, 19°55 west of Paris, the geographer Delisle decided to round this off to 20°, so that it simply became the meridian of Paris disguised. In the early 18th century the battle was on to improve the determination of longitude at sea, between 1765 and 1811, Nevil Maskelyne published 49 issues of the Nautical Almanac based on the meridian of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Maskelynes tables not only made the lunar method practicable, they made the Greenwich meridian the universal reference point. In 1884, at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D. C.22 countries voted to adopt the Greenwich meridian as the meridian of the world. The French argued for a line, mentioning the Azores and the Bering Strait. In October 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was selected by delegates to the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, united States to be the common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world

2.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them

3.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations

4.
Southern Ocean
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As such, it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean. This ocean zone is cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters. By way of his voyages in the 1770s, Captain James Cook proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. Since then, geographers have disagreed on the Southern Oceans northern boundary or even existence, considering the part of the Pacific, Atlantic. Others regard the seasonally-fluctuating Antarctic Convergence as the natural boundary, Borders and names for oceans and seas were internationally agreed when the International Hydrographic Bureau, the precusor to the IHO, convened the First International Conference on 24 July 1919. The IHO then published these in its Limits of Oceans and Seas, Australian authorities regard the Southern Ocean as lying immediately south of Australia. Map publishers using the term Southern Ocean on their maps include Hema Maps, Southern Ocean is an obsolete name for the Pacific Ocean or South Pacific, coined by Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to discover it, who approached it from the north. The South Seas is an archaic synonym. A1745 British Act of Parliament established a prize for discovering a Northwest Passage to the Western and Southern Ocean of America, authors using Southern Ocean to name the waters encircling the unknown southern polar regions used varying limits. James Cooks account of his second voyage implies New Caledonia borders it, peacocks 1795 Geographical Dictionary said it lay to the southward of America and Africa, John Payne in 1796 used 40 degrees as the northern limit, the 1827 Edinburgh Gazetteer used 50 degrees. The United Kingdoms South Australia Act 1834 described the waters forming the southern limit of the new colony of South Australia as the Southern Ocean. The Colony of Victorias Legislative Council Act of 1881 delimited part of the division of Bairnsdale as along the New South Wales boundary to the Southern ocean. The limit then followed the west coast of Tasmania southwards to the South East Cape and then went eastwards to Broughton Island, New Zealand, the northern limits of the Southern Ocean were moved southwards in the IHOs 1937 second edition of the Limits of Oceans and Seas. From this edition, much of the northern limit ceased to abut land masses. As is discussed in detail below, prior to the 2002 edition the limits of oceans explicitly excluded the seas lying within each of them. The Great Australian Bight was unnamed in the 1928 edition, and it therefore encompassed former Southern Ocean waters but was technically not inside any of the three adjacent oceans by 1937. To perform direct comparisons of current and former limits of oceans it is necessary to consider, or at least be aware of, the limits of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans have therefore been extended South to the Antarctic Continent. The IHO readdressed the question of the Southern Ocean in a survey in 2000, of its 68 member nations,28 responded, and all responding members except Argentina agreed to redefine the ocean, reflecting the importance placed by oceanographers on ocean currents

5.
South Pole
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The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earths axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth, situated on the continent of Antarctica, it is the site of the United States Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, which was established in 1956 and has been permanently staffed since that year. The Geographic South Pole should not be confused with the South Magnetic Pole, the South Pole is at the center of the Southern Hemisphere. For most purposes, the Geographic South Pole is defined as the point of the two points where the Earths axis of rotation intersects its surface. However, the Earths axis of rotation is actually subject to very small wobbles, the geographic coordinates of the South Pole are usually given simply as 90°S, since its longitude is geometrically undefined and irrelevant. When a longitude is desired, it may be given as 0°, at the South Pole, all directions face north. For this reason, directions at the Pole are given relative to grid north, along tight latitude circles, clockwise is east, and counterclockwise is west, opposite to the North Pole. The Geographic South Pole is located on the continent of Antarctica. It sits atop a featureless, barren, windswept and icy plateau at an altitude of 2,835 metres above sea level, and is located about 1,300 km from the nearest open sea at Bay of Whales. The ice is estimated to be about 2,700 metres thick at the Pole, the polar ice sheet is moving at a rate of roughly 10 metres per year in a direction between 37° and 40° west of grid north, down towards the Weddell Sea. Therefore, the position of the station and other artificial features relative to the geographic pole gradually shift over time. The Geographic South Pole is marked by a stake in the ice alongside a small sign, these are repositioned each year in a ceremony on New Years Day to compensate for the movement of the ice. The sign records the respective dates that Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott reached the Pole, followed by a quotation from each man. A new marker stake is designed and fabricated each year by staff at the site, the Ceremonial South Pole is an area set aside for photo opportunities at the South Pole Station. It is located around 180 metres from the Geographic South Pole, Amundsens Tent, The tent was erected by the Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen on its arrival on 14 December 1911. It is currently buried beneath the snow and ice in the vicinity of the Pole and it has been designated a Historic Site or Monument, following a proposal by Norway to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. In 1820, several expeditions claimed to have been the first to have sighted Antarctica, with the very first being the Russian expedition led by Faddey Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The first landing was probably just over a year later when American Captain John Davis, the basic geography of the Antarctic coastline was not understood until the mid-to-late 19th century

6.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

7.
Sakha Republic
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The Sakha Republic is a federal subject of Russia. It has a population of 958,528, consisting mainly of ethnic Yakuts and it is larger than Argentina and just smaller than India which covers an area of 3,287,590 square kilometers. Its capital is the city of Yakutsk, the Sakha Republic is one of the ten autonomous Turkic Republics within the Russian Federation. The hypercontinental tendencies also result in warm summers for much of the republic. Borders, internal, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Magadan Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai. water, Arctic Ocean. These waters, the coldest and iciest of all seas in the Northern Hemisphere, are covered by ice for 9–10 months of the year, new Siberian Islands are a part of the republics territory. Sakha can be divided into three great vegetation belts, about 40% of Sakha lies above the Arctic circle and all of it is covered by permafrost which greatly influences the regions ecology and limits forests in the southern region. Arctic and subarctic tundra define the region, where lichen. In the southern part of the belt, scattered stands of dwarf Siberian pine. Below the tundra is the vast taiga forest region, larch trees dominate in the north and stands of fir and pine begin to appear in the south. Taiga forests cover about 47% of Sakha and almost 90% of the cover is larch, Sakha spans three time zones, Yakutsk Time Zone. Covers the republics territory to the west of the Lena River as well as the territories of the located on the both sides of the Lena River. Covers most of the territory located between 127°E and 140°E longitude. Covers most of the territory located east of 140°E longitude. Districts, Abyysky, Allaikhovsky, Momsky, Nizhnekolymsky, Srednekolymsky, Verkhnekolymsky, the Chersky Range runs east of the Verkhoyansk Range and has the highest peak in Sakha, Peak Pobeda. The second highest peak is Peak Mus-Khaya reaching 3,011 m, the Stanovoi Range borders Sakha in the south. Sakha is well endowed with raw materials, the soil contains large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, silver, tin, tungsten and many others. Sakha produces 99% of all Russian diamonds and over 25% of the diamonds mined in the world, Sakha is known for its climate extremes, with the Verkhoyansk Range being the coldest area in the Northern Hemisphere

8.
Laptev Sea
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The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands and its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy Cape. The Kara Sea lies to the west, the East Siberian Sea to the east, the sea has a severe climate with temperatures below 0 °C over more than 9 months per year, low water salinity, scarcity of flora, fauna and human population, and low depths. It is frozen most of the time, though clear in August. The sea shores were inhabited for thousands of years by tribes of Yukaghirs and then Evens and Evenks. They were then settled by Yakuts and later by Russians, Russian explorations of the area started in the 17th century. They came from the south via several large rivers which empty into the sea, such as the prominent Lena River, the Khatanga, the Anabar, the Olenyok, the Omoloy, the sea contains several dozen islands, many of which contain well-preserved mammoth remains. Major human activities in the area are mining and navigation on the Northern Sea Route, the largest settlement and port is Tiksi. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Laptev Sea as follows, the eastern limit of Kara Sea. A line joining Cape Molotov to the Northern extremity of Kotelni Island, from the Northern extremity of Kotelni Island – through Kotelni Island to Cape Madvejyi. Then through Malyi Island, to Cape Vaguin on Great Liakhov Island, thence to Cape Sviatoy Nos on the main land. Using current geographic names and transcription this definition corresponds to the shown in the map. The seas border starts at Arctic Cape on Komsomolets Island at 81°13′N 95°15′E and connects to Cape Rosa Luxemburg, the next segment crosses Red Army Strait and leads to Cape Vorochilov on October Revolution Island and afterwards through that island to Cape Anuchin at 79°39′37″N 100°21′22″E. Next, the border crosses Shokalsky Strait to Cape Unslicht at 79°25′04″N 102°31′00″E on Bolshevik Island and it goes further through the island to Cape Yevgenov at 78°17′N 104°50′E. From there, the border goes through Vilkitsky Strait to Cape Pronchishchev at 77°32′57″N 105°54′4″E on the Tamyr peninsula, the southern boundary is the shore of the Asian mainland. Prominent features are the Khatanga Gulf and the delta of the Lena River, in the east, the polygon crosses the Dmitry Laptev Strait. It connects Cape Svyatoy Nos at 72. 7°N141. 2°E﻿ /72.7,141. 2﻿ with Cape Vagin at 73°26′0″N 139°50′0″E in the very east of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. Next, the Laptev Sea border crosses Eterikan Strait to Little Lyakhovsky Island at 74. 0833°N140. 5833°E﻿ /74.0833,140. 5833﻿ up to Cape Medvezhiy, finally, there is a segment through Kotelny Island to Cape Anisy, its northernmost headland 76°10′N 138°50′E

9.
Sea of Japan
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The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, and the Asian mainland. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean and it is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean and this isolation also reflects in the fauna species and in the water salinity, which is lower than in the ocean. The sea has no islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their contribution to the water exchange is within 1%. The seawater has a concentration of dissolved oxygen that results in high biological productivity. Therefore, fishing is the dominant economic activity in the region, the intensity of shipments across the sea has been moderate owing to political issues, but it is steadily increasing as a result of the growth of East Asian economies. The sea is called Rìběn hǎi or originally Jīng hǎi in China, Yaponskoye more in Russia, Chosŏn Tonghae in North Korea, a naming dispute exists about the sea name, with South and North Korea promoting the English translation of its native name East Sea. In Europe, the sea is called Mer du Japon in French, Japanisches Meer in German, Mar del Giappone in Italian, in Southeast Asia, the sea is called Laut Jepun in Malay, Laut Jepang in Indonesian, and Dagat Hapon in Filipino. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Japan Sea as follows, the Northeastern limit of the Eastern China Sea and the Western limit of the Inland Sea. A line running from Nagoya Saki in Kyûsyû through the islands of Uma Sima, from the extremity of Siriya Saki to the extremity of Esan Saki. A line joining Sôni Misaki and Nishi Notoro Misaki, from Cape Tuik to Cape Sushcheva. The Sea of Japan was once a landlocked sea when the bridge of East Asia existed. The onset of formation of the Japan Arc was in Early Miocene, the Early Miocene period also corresponds to incipient opening of the Japan Sea, and the northern and southern parts of the Japanese archipelago that were separated from each other. During the Miocene, there was expansion of Sea of Japan, the northern part of the Japanese archipelago was further fragmented at later periods until the orogenesis of the northeastern Japanese archipelago began in the later Late Miocene. The southern part of the Japanese archipelago remained as a large landmass. The land area had expanded northward in the Late Miocene, the orogenesis of high mountain ranges in the northeastern Japan started in Late Miocene and it lasts in Pliocene also

10.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon

11.
Niigata Prefecture
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Niigata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Honshu on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The capital is the city of Niigata with which it shares the same name, until after the Meiji Restoration, the area that is now Niigata Prefecture was divided into Echigo Province and Sado Province. During the Sengoku period, the Nagao clan, who were at times vassals to the Uesugi, the most notable member of the Nagao clan was Nagao Kagetora, later and better known as Uesugi Kenshin. He unified the leaders of Echigo Province and became its sole ruler, by taking the surname Uesugi, he also became the head of the Uesugi clan and effectively brought their realm under his control. The city of Niigata is now the third largest Japanese city facing the Sea of Japan, after Fukuoka and it was the first Japanese port on the Sea of Japan to be opened to foreign trade following the opening of Japan by Matthew Perry. It has since played an important role in trade with Russia, a freighter from North Korea visits Niigata once a month, in one of the few forms of direct contact between Japan and that country. The Etsuzankai organization, led by the politician Kakuei Tanaka, was influential in bringing infrastructure improvements to Niigata Prefecture in the 1960s and 1970s. These included the Jōetsu Shinkansen high-speed rail line and the Kanetsu Expressway to Tokyo, on October 23,2004, the Chūetsu earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture and was measured at Shindo 6+ at Ojiya. On January 9,2006, a winter storm struck the prefecture. At least 71 people died and more than 1,000 were injured, also in 2006, a massive tsunami and earthquake damaged homes and caused casualties in the maritime areas of Niigata Prefecture, especially near Sado Island. On July 16,2007, another hit the area. Niigata Prefecture hosts the Fuji Rock Festival, an event held at the Naeba ski resort. The three-day event, organized by Smash Japan, features more than 200 Japanese and it is one of the largest outdoor music events in Japan, with more than 100,000 people attending in 2005. Niigata Prefecture stretches about 240 km along the Sea of Japan, from the southwest to the northeast, Niigata Prefecture could be placed in either the Hokuriku or the Kōshinetsu, both of which are considered parts of the Chūbu region. The prefecture is divided into four geographical areas, Jōetsu region in the south, Chūetsu in the center, Kaetsu in the north. The mouth of the Shinano River, the longest river in Japan, is located in Niigata Prefecture, twenty cities are located in Niigata Prefecture, These are the towns and villages in each district, The major industry in Niigata Prefecture is agriculture. Rice is the product, and among the prefectures of Japan Niigata is second only to Hokkaidō in rice output. The area around Uonuma is known for producing the Koshihikari variety, rice-related industries are also very important to the prefectural economy

12.
Niigata, Niigata
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Niigata is the capital and the most populous city of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It lies on the northwest coast of Honshu, the largest island of Japan, in the Chūbu region and faces the Sea of Japan and Sado Island. As of 1 June 2016, the city had an population of 807,450. The total area is 726.45 square kilometres, greater Niigata, Niigata Metropolitan Employment Area, has a GDP of US$43.3 billion as of 2010. With a long history as a town, Niigata became a free port following the Meiji Restoration. Niigatas city government was established in 1889, mergers with nearby municipalities in 2005 allowed the citys population to jump to 810,000. The annexation of the area has also given the city the greatest rice paddy field acreage in Japan. On April 1,2007, it became the first government-designated city on the Japan Sea coast of Honshu, people have inhabited the Niigata area since the Jōmon period, though much of the current land was still beneath the sea at the time. According to the Nihon Shoki, a fortress was built in the area in AD647. In the 16th century, a port called Niigata was established at the mouth of the Shinano River, the area prospered beneath the rule of Uesugi Kenshin during the Sengoku Period. A system of canals was constructed on the island of Niigata in the 17th century. During this period, the courses of the Shinano and Agano rivers gradually changed until they poured into the Sea of Japan at the same location. As a result, Niigata prospered as a town, serving as a port of call for Japanese trade ships traversing the Sea of Japan. The Matsugasaki Canal was constructed in 1730 to drain the Agano River area, as a result, the volume of water flowing into the port of Niigata decreased, which in turn allowed land reclamation efforts and the development of new rice fields to proceed. In 1858, Niigata was designated as one of the five ports to be opened for trade in the Japan–U. S. However, the water level in the port delayed the actual opening to foreign ships until 1869. The port also served as a base for fishermen who roamed as far north as the Kamchatka Peninsula to catch salmon. In 1886, the first Bandai Bridge was built across the Shinano River to connect the settlements of Niigata on the east and Nuttari on the west

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the …

Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller map dated 1507, from a time when the nature of the Americas was ambiguous, particularly North America, as a possible part of Asia, was the first map to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans. South America was generally considered a "new world" and shows the name "America" for the first time, after Amerigo Vespucci

Made in 1529, the Diogo Ribeiro map was the first to show the Pacific at about its proper size